In the end it wasn't me who persuaded Greg to go back to the house. Although the weather had been good for a couple of weeks, the last days of June mustered all their energy and came on like a riot. London was close to unbearable. Remembering it now, I wonder whether Lucas saw his opportunity. My mobile rang on Friday evening while I was in the shower, trying to lose the dirty, used feeling of being too hot in the city. 'Could you get that, Greg?' I shouted over the drumming of the water. I came up the landing to my room just as he was finishing the call.
'It was Lucas,' said Greg, sliding the phone back on to the bedside table.
I stopped and looked at him.
'He's asking whether we want to go up. He says there's a pool in the river in the wood. They're going to swim tomorrow.'
'What?' I said. 'Are you saying you want to go there?'
'I'd like a swim. Anything to feel cool.'
'But we could swim somewhere else.'
'Jo, Lucas and I have talked, and it's OK. I don't want to be the reason why you can't be friends. That doesn't solve anything. If he's decent enough to forgive me, the least I can do is face him. I told him we'd go - if you want to, of course. And you're not working this weekend so it made sense.'
'Thank you,' I said. 'It means a lot to me.'
Greg drove us up to Stoneborough the following day. I was attempting to distract myself from my nerves by reading the paper; I'd get carsick when we finally started to move but I was safe for now. Both lanes on the Hammersmith flyover were stationary. A petrol-scented heat haze shimmered over the road ahead of us but inside the air conditioning was keeping us slightly too cool. I could feel the hairs on my arms rising. I was impressed by Greg's black Mercedes, despite myself. Like so many things about him, it seemed more adult than anything else connected with me. Even if I could have afforded one, it would never have occurred to me to buy a car like it.
The roads were busy all the way. On the section of motorway out beyond Highwycombe, the shiny roofs of the cars ahead stretched away like beads on a multicoloured necklace. The countryside was ripening. The violent yellow of the oilseed rape was gone and now the cornfields were turning the palest shade of silver gold. There was no breeze today to run through them like the touch of invisible fingers. The crop stood erect and motionless in the stifling air.
The others were in the garden when we arrived but they hung back and let Lucas come to meet us. Greg slung our bags over his shoulder and put his arm around me, protective and possessive at once. I didn't want to hug Lucas in front of Greg so I ended up giving him an awkward pat.
Lucas and Greg shook hands. 'Thanks for coming, mate,' Lucas said.
Greg nodded. 'Thanks for having us. We're looking forward to a swim. London's disgusting. You did the right thing in getting out when you could.'
'The bed's been made up in your old room, Greg,' said Lucas, and I looked away quickly in case he tried to meet my eye. 'If you want to go and change into your swimming gear.' Although we'd been together for almost three months, it still felt odd to go to what I thought of as his and Rachel's room. I would have to try not to imagine them together in that big bed, just as I had disciplined myself not to see Rachel in his flat in Shepherd's Bush. If I let myself think about it, disbelief at what I'd done to her came rushing up on me and then the awful sinking-mud of the guilt. If Greg and I were to have a future, I had to let it go.
When we came down the others were on the terrace and we set off for the river. Michael and Danny went ahead with Martha, who swung a straw bag full of towels in front of her and behind like a metronome. The boys were striding out and she put in quick extra steps now and again to keep up. 'I've been watching more of the cines, Jo,' said Lucas as we tramped across the crisping grass, the heat from the sun warming our backs. 'It's really odd watching your parents smoke grass and your mother sunbathing topless.' He gave a short laugh. 'What chance did I ever stand of rebelling?'
I thought of his law career, now abandoned.
'How's the writing going?' asked Greg.
'Good, actually. I'm feeling really positive about it.'
'And how are you feeling generally?' I said. I had debated with myself whether I ought to mention his overdose and decided yes. We shouldn't pretend it hadn't happened, however much we wanted to.
'OK. Good. I feel happier. They said I should see a counsellor but I didn't really see the need. Things are much better now.'
'Perhaps you should anyway,' I said, 'just to ...'
'Where do we go from here, Lucas?' Martha shouted.
The others waited until we caught them up and Lucas led us into the wood. It was like entering another world. As soon as we came under the trees the light changed to an aqueous green and the air felt cool and medicinal. We might have discovered an underwater kingdom or slipped back in time, maybe as far as the Middle Ages. I could see that there had once been a path but no one had walked it for a while. We followed its traces as best we could. Brambles, nature's barbed wire, covered everything. They snagged my clothes and tore at my skin as we picked our way through. Underfoot the ground was spongy with moss and the leaves of past seasons. Greg went ahead of me and held the elder branches that snapped back as soon as they were released, full of fresh sap. Thirty or so yards in, a fallen tree blocked the way. Danny and Greg vaulted over it but, doubting my athleticism, I sat down on it and swung my legs round, leaving a round patch of green dust on my backside.
'It's like something out of bloody "Sleeping Beauty",' said Martha, as she detached the prickles of a briar that clung to her T-shirt. 'How much more of this?'
'You're such a girl, Martha,' said Danny, swinging his hips from side to side in a deft slalom through the undergrowth. She laughed. 'Wait for me then.'
'It's amazing in here.' Greg stopped me for a second and raised his head.
I looked up. The trees grew so thickly that little sun filtered through. Where it did, it pierced the canopy in sharp, bright beams, casting small pools of light on the ground around us. There was birdsong above our heads then a fluster of wings and leaves as a blackbird made a break for freedom and punctured the thick vegetation out into the clear air.
'It's great, isn't it? I used to play here all the time when I was a child,' Lucas called back to us. 'I could hide for hours no one ever found me.'
We picked our way through for ten minutes. At last we came to a place where the trees and bushes thinned out and gave way to a flat bank of soft mossy grass. There was the river, just as Lucas had described it. As it flowed down to the clearing it was about ten feet wide and looked deep, running within the bounds that it had worn for itself, but here in front of us it swelled out in a broad bulb, as if allowing itself a moment to idle in the sun. This broad expanse, probably twenty feet long, was shallower and a paler green. The water was clear and its surface scintillated with sunlight, a watery counterpart to the bank, which was speckled by the light reaching through the leaves overhead. Where the water tapered to the edge, I could see white pebbles gleaming up and a small amount of ribbony weed, combed forward by the current like silky hair.
'Who's first in? Come on, girls.'
'After you, Danny.'
Michael had taken his trainers and socks off and was sitting on the tiny cliff at the edge of the bank, about to slip his feet into the water. 'My God, it's bitter. Are you serious about swimming?'
Lucas smiled and sat down, propping his back against the ridged trunk of a large beech tree. 'Of course. But I've done it before, so I'm not going in first.'
Martha was paddling, walking carefully up and down the edge, her feet a strange marble white under the water. 'It only feels cold because of the air temperature. It's OK once you get used to it.'
'Then put your money where your mouth is, Martha,' said Danny.
'I didn't bring a costume.' She looked at him sideways.
'I'm sure no one will mind if you go in without.'
'Funny.' She laughed, a sweet flirtatious laugh that I was amazed no one else seemed to recognise for what it was.
To our right, about twenty feet upstream, there was a splash. I turned and saw the last of the spray fall as the river reclaimed the displaced water. Under the surface a body glided by. Just when I thought that he could hold his breath no longer, he angled up and Greg's head and shoulders broke the surface. He shook his head like a dog, sending droplets of water spinning in a bright circle around him. 'Come on in, the water's lovely,' he laughed.
'Is it freezing?' I shouted.
'Refreshing.' He dived back down.
'We can't let him beat us, Martha.' I started to unlace my plimsolls. 'Come on, just wear your underwear.'
I stepped into the shallows. The water was blue-cold and invigorating; it was like getting into a shot of frozen vodka. I waded a little further out. Now my body was operating in two temperature zones, my shoulders and arms warmed by the sun, the flesh below my knees beginning to go numb.
'Come on, Jo,' Greg called. All or nothing, I thought. I took another few steps and then plunged forward. The water was so cold it was painful. I swam as fast as I could over to Greg and put my arms around him in the hope of some heat.
'Brrr,' I said, teeth chattering.
'Look warm,' he whispered to me. 'Or we'll never get the others in.' He slipped out of my arms and down into the water. I felt a tug at my feet as he pulled me under. Beneath the surface, it was silent apart from the crystal sound of the river sluicing past. The current was strong; it wanted to carry me with it. I could hear my own heartbeat. I surfaced again and gasped for breath. Greg came up next to me, smiling. 'Your costume's gone completely see-through.'
Michael swam up beside us. 'My balls are like frozen peas,' he said. 'This can't be good for you.'
On the bank, there was the sound of wine being opened. Lucas poured himself a glass and downed it, thinking everyone preoccupied. I looked at Greg, who had also noticed. Martha was standing in the shallows now in a pair of raspberry-coloured lacy pants. Her body was long and lean, her hips slim enough to be boyish but with an undeniable female curve out from the waist. I saw Lucas glance up and see her. He turned away, embarrassed, but then sneaked another look. 'Are you trying to upstage me, Martha?' I shouted across to her. 'What's with just the knickers?'
'I wasn't wearing a bra,' she shouted back. 'How stupid do I feel?'
'Get in quickly then.'
She took a final look at Danny and then launched herself in. She swam efficiently over to where the three of us were already treading water. 'God, it's freezing,' she said. 'I'm going to get those two in. Lucas,' she yelled.
'OK, OK.' He stood up and took off his clothes, dropping them in a pile. It was strange, seeing his body; I had come to know it well and now it was off-bounds, withdrawn from me for ever. I felt a little shock of regret. He was thinner than Greg, but for someone who never took purposeful exercise he was in surprisingly good shape. Martha wolf-whistled. 'Cut it out, Marth,' he said, but I saw him fight down a small smile. He walked upstream to the place where Greg had gone in and with a spring he left the bank and cut into the water, which closed immediately over his body. For five or six seconds he disappeared, then resurfaced downstream from us. 'Yes,' he said. 'It's just as cold as it used to be.' His head was as dark and sleek as a seal's.
Danny took some persuading. 'Honestly,' he said. 'I'm fine. I'm just the right temperature - I don't need to cool down.'
'Come on,' said Martha. 'Just swim.'
'After I've had a cigarette.'
Every second that he sat on the edge of the bank made us more determined to get him in. Eventually he ran out of stalling tactics and stripped down to his black cotton boxers. He stepped in at the edge and strode about.
'For God's sake, Danny, will you just get in?' Lucas swam closer to him.
'All right, all right, let me acclimatise.'
'Come on,' said Michael. 'I'm starting to look like a pickled walnut.'
It took Danny five minutes to get far enough in for the water to reach his thighs and lap at the bottom of his shorts. Eventually Lucas lost patience, swam up behind him and pushed him forward into deeper water. I don't know if anyone else saw it but a look of utter panic flashed across his face as he realised he was falling. There was a splash and he disappeared below the surface, face forward. The current pulled him away from us.
A moment or two passed. His head came up for a second and there was the guttural choking sound of river water swallowed the wrong way. His body bobbed up and down like a fishing float and his arms flailed in the water and the air above his head.
Martha and Michael laughed, thinking it was a joke. 'Very funny, Danny,' said Lucas, swimming back to his place midstream, but there was no answer.
'Bloody hell, Jo,' Greg said quietly.
'He really can't swim.' He crossed the water to Danny, took his arm and lifted his mouth out of the river. Danny gasped and slipped down again. I caught sight of his face as he went under. His expression was one of terror. He thought he was going to drown. Greg bobbed down and caught him under the armpits and brought him up to the surface. He held his chin until Danny caught his breath and stopped panicking. Then he took him nearer the bank, where he could stand again. Somehow Greg made it look like they were swimming together but the others had seen Danny struggling. They looked away and tried to pretend they hadn't, as did I.
'Sorry, mate,' I heard Greg say to him. 'We should have warned you. It's bloody cold. I'm getting out. Let's have a glass of that wine.' They picked their way to the edge and climbed out. Compared to Danny, Greg's body looked rough and huge, wet Labrador to Danny's greyhound. Danny was shivering but trying to disguise his shock. 'Get some clothes on,' Greg told him, throwing him a towel.
'I'm getting chilly,' I said to the others. 'I'm getting out, too.' The air was a fresh assault and I wrapped my towel tightly around me. I realised that I had forgotten to bring my underwear so I took off my costume and pulled on my T-shirt and jeans over bare skin as inconspicuously as I could. Greg was pouring the wine that Lucas had opened. I went to sit next to him in the sun and rubbed my arms to get rid of the goosebumps.